Jewish settler group campaigns against peace deal

Jan. 26, 2014
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2014 _YouTube courtesy of the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria A new PR campaign by the Yesha Council of Jewish settlements alternately criticizes and pokes fun at the peace efforts of US Secretary of State John Kerry screen grab via YouTube.com / YouTube.com

by Michele Chabin, Special for USA TODAY

by Michele Chabin, Special for USA TODAY

JERUSALEM - A powerful advocacy group for Jewish settlers in the West Bank has launched a campaign to make sure Israel doesn't cave in to pressure from the West - and the United States in particular - to remove settlements for a peace deal with Palestinians.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has held several meetings over the past five months with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to pressure both sides to make concessions to allow Palestinians to have a state on land controlled by Israel.

But as Kerry gets closer to announcing a framework for negotiations, a new PR campaign launched by Israel's settler community is trying to make sure Israel's politicians don't give away too much.

The Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria has launched "Keep the Country Safe - Don't Surrender to Kerry," which debuted with media spots, street banners, public protests and a video.

The campaign aims to strengthen the resolve of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others "against surrendering Israel's security and national interests to John Kerry," says the group.

Settler leaders say Kerry is exerting a huge amount of pressure on Netanyahu to uproot at least some of the roughly 200 settlements in the West Bank, a region the size of Delaware on Israel's eastern border where about 375,000 Israelis and 2.1 million Palestinians live.

President Obama has said he does not accept the legitimacy of the Israelis living in the West Bank, which has been controlled going back a century of warfare by the Ottoman Turks, the British empire, Jordan and now Israel.

Kerry has been shuttling between Washington, Jerusalem and Ramallah, where the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said all Jewish settlements must be abandoned. But many Israelis say any deal must ensure Jewish settlements are made part of Israel.

Netanyahu has said any deal must allow some settlements to become part of Israel proper. But which ones is what worries the settlers.

In one of the campaign's YouTube videos, an actor portraying Kerry offers ridiculous solutions to absurd problems that involve toilet paper and a tutu. The Kerry actor says, "We don't have good solutions, but we have to do something right."

In an ad, past prime ministers of Israel are quoted on safeguarding the Jordan Valley, and Kerry is listed as being against it. Some Israeli politicians say the campaign is damaging to Israel and the peaceful resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians.

Nitan Horowitz, an Israeli parliamentarian from the left-wing Meretz party, called the campaign part of the "unceasing efforts by the right to damage the diplomatic process." A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv said the embassy had seen ads in newspapers but had no response.

Dani Dayan, chief foreign envoy of the Yesha Council, defended his organization's right to fight the U.S. diplomatic push. Some charge that the campaign - headed by an organization funded by local councils that receive money from the Israeli government - is inciting violence.

"It is outrageous and completely unacceptable to label legitimate criticism toward Kerry's positions as incitement," says Dayan, whose group has sometimes been critical of the Netanyahu government.

Dayan said settler leaders consider the odds of a peace deal "slim," but that "we must remain proactive." Newspapers such as Israel Hayom have been reporting that Kerry is developing a framework for negotiations on a final agreement that may include demands not agreed to by either side.

Arie Kacowicz, a professor of international relations at the Hebrew University, said the Yesha Council's campaign could sway the positions that Israel takes.

The Yesha Council "is one of the most powerful and effective lobbying groups" in Israel, and wields a great deal of influence on right-wing parliamentarians and Netanyahu's Likud party.

"The fact that they have started a campaign against Kerry and his peace initiative shows they are taking him seriously. Maybe they know something about the proposed framework agreement that you and I don't," Kacowicz said